Judge halts work at Walmart-anchored mixed-use project in south Dade

Environmentalists want to stop the multifamily and retail project from being built on the rockland site

Coral Reef Commons (Credit: Reserve At Edgewood and Lennar Corporation, Public Domain Pictures)
Coral Reef Commons (Credit: Reserve At Edgewood and Lennar Corporation, Public Domain Pictures)

Environmentalists scored a win on Friday after a federal judge ordered a stop to bulldozing at the proposed site of a Walmart in Miami-Dade County.

Developers plan to build a mall, 900 apartments and a parking lot on the land, near Zoo Miami in south Dade. The Center for Biological Diversity and three other groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after it paved the way for the development earlier this week, according to the Miami Herald.

On Friday, judge Ursula Ungaro issued an emergency injunction to halt the work, saying that ongoing bulldozing of pine rockland could cause irreparable harm.

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Palm Beach County-based developer Ram Realty Services owns the site.

Residents and environmentalists have protested its plans for the area because the land houses a variety of endangered wildlife and the largest intact stretch of pine rockland outside of the Everglades National Park.

Judge Ungaro said in her ruling that the plaintiffs stand a good chance of winning the case. [Miami Herald] – Katherine Kallergis